


don't you remember

by marquisdegayaf



Category: Something Rotten! - Kirkpatrick/Kirkpatrick/O'Farrell
Genre: House Party, M/M, Uni AU, i hate this it took me ages to write and its Bad, nigels highly strung, tw for alcohol and drugs, will's a snarky nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:17:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquisdegayaf/pseuds/marquisdegayaf
Summary: local poetry sadboyz meet for the first time and engage in gay chatz??? i cant do summaries





	

Will didn’t know it was possible to hotbox an entire house, but here he is. Standing in the hall of a house share in camden owned by a bunch of second year english students on a friday night. He could be raving with some of the actors from the cut right now, but instead he’s here. Mostly because he’s sick of listening to the same pillheads wax on about Burroughs, and because this party means free booze. Some kid is passed out on the stairwell, a kuppersberg can still clutched in his hand. Will steps over him and squeezes past a pack of messily grinding first year drama kids to get into the kitchen. Whitney Houston is blaring from inside, so the kids from RAD must be here. 

Will’s prediction was right. The first thing he sees through the sizeable cloud of smoke in the kitchen is a guy of about nineteen in a t-shirt reading ‘what would liza do?’ sitting in front splits on the counter, lipsyncing along with Whitney with a blunt in hand. Antonio, Will thinks his name is. He’s right, because probably-Antonio waves at Will with his blunt-less hand. Will smiles back, edges over to the drinks table, grabs an unopened smirnoff ice, opens it, chugs half of it, tops it up with tequila and starts sipping the rest while lightly bopping to the music. He chats with a girl called Viola who’s stoned out of her mind about how victorian literature blows donkeys or about a quarter of an hour until she blows smoke straight into his face, inducing a coughing fit. That combined with the volume of the music and density of the smoke makes Will feel a little overwhelmed, so he moves out into the back garden. It’s a cold autumn night, but smoke is punctuating the air heavily. Two girls are making out under a picnic bench. Will catches one of their eyes and raises his glass to her. She blushes and goes back to the task at hand. The garden looks empty otherwise, but for a tinny, soft sound coming from further away. Will takes another swig of his drink and goes to investigate. It’s too dark to see shit but the faint glow of a streetlight is illuminating a cloud of smoke so that it is edged in burnt orange. Will walks toward it. As he does the sound gets louder and louder until he can make out the fact that it’s music. Light, twisting, buzzy music. Soft guitars and maybe some mandolins. The tinny sound must be because it’s coming from a phone. Will turns a corner and is struck dumb by what he sees.

It’s a boy. A small, skinny kid. Must be a first year. He’s perched on a tree stump, smoking a roll up. His freckled face is illuminated by the light from a smartphone balanced on his knee. His eyes are shut and he has these thick, dark eyelashes and the cigarette between his lips is forcing his face to relax and he looks so peaceful that Will can’t bare to startle him. He feels as though he’s intruding on something secret. Something private. The music drones on, the vocalist hissing over the soft music in an almost unsettling manner. The kid looks ethereal. The golden cloud of smoke is like a halo around his hair. Will feels kind of creepy but he can’t help it. He’s transfixed.

Suddenly a fox screeches in the distance and the kid jumps. The cigarette drops from his mouth and onto the ground. He looks around like a hunted, wounded animal and when he notices Will he yelps and scrambles off the stump, creating more distance. Will puts his hands up in surrender, but doesn’t move. The kid darts forward, grabs his phone then moves away again. He’s shaking like anything, Will notices. He tries to help: “sorry if I scared you?”  
“J-just a bit!” The kid says breathlessly, “how long were you there for?”  
“No time at all. Were you meditating?”  
“Nah. Just needed space to breathe.”  
“Me too! It’s a fucking sauna in there!” Will grins. The boy almost smiles but instead elects to just bite his lip. There’s an awkward silence. Will remembers the bottle and holds it out to the boy, “want some?” The kid looks horrified. Will suppresses a laugh, how straight-laced can you get? “C’mon, it won’t kill you-”, as soon as Will speaks he realises exactly how white the boy’s teeth look in the lamplight and feels a hot shiver of panic down his back, “-or, actually, it might. How old are you?” The kid blushes bright red:  
“Eighteen. First year. UCL.” Will is relieved and intrigued:  
“Hey, I’m at UCL! What course are you on?”  
“Modern language plus. English and german.”  
“Wicked. I’m in my third year of english.” Will leaves out the bit about doing night school for creative writing on the side for risk of sounding like a nerd.  
“You’re lucky. That’s the course I wanted to do.” The boy says with a wistful look.  
“Oh?”  
“Yeah. But my brother and I figured that doing german would be more beneficial.”  
“That probably makes a lot more exciting. Two years of victorian lit isn’t quite all sparkles and rainbows and joy, as much as it may shock you.” Will says with the quirk of an eyebrow. The boy manages a rueful smile, clearly more at ease. Will holds out his bottle again, “sure you don’t want any?”   
“I shouldn’t. I’ve second-handed enough pot in the last three hours to get a horse stoned.”  
“Fair. My body’s so resistant to all of it at this point, it barely makes any difference.” Will says it without thinking. The kid looks a little freaked out. Will panics: “That- came out wrong! I just go to a lot of parties with the theatre lot?”  
“Oh. Yeah. My brother went to italia conti in the noughties, he knows a few of them.”  
“I went to italia conti! Which branch?”  
“Clapham?” The boy’s eyes are a little warmer now. His guard is fading.  
“Ah. I went to the main. Did you go?” Will asks. The boy tucks a lock of his hair behind his hair and shakes his head. A wave of deja vu hits Will very hard and very suddenly. Combined with the weed and booze it makes his legs falter. He sees black.

A few moments later Will wakes up with a painful back, propped up against the tree stump. The kid is sitting facing him, about a metre away, smoking another roll up with Will’s drink in his hand. Dyonisis, Will thinks. Or Eros. He clears his throat. “You stole my drink.”  
“You dropped your drink. I picked it up.” The boy says softly. Will focuses on his face. His lips are wet.  
“You picked it up and took a sip from it.”  
“I suppose I did. You offered it to me, though.”   
“I suppose I did.” They smile at eachother for a moment before the boy looks away from Will again. Will bites his lip. “What happened?”  
“Everything hit you at once, I think. You went out cold.”  
“Hm… You alright?”  
“Aye. How’s your back? You fell onto it.”  
“It’s fine. Can I have my drink back?”  
“I’ll think about it, wanna cigarette?” The boy asks with a distracted look. Will turns his head to one side. He can’t work this kid out.   
“...sure.” He replies. The kid takes a final drag from the smoke in his mouth, takes it out with his middle and index finger and holds it out to Will.  
“I’m Nigel.” He says, smoke billowing out of his mouth. Will smirks and inhales deeply.  
“I’m Will. Nice to meet you.”  
“I hope it is.” Nigel says. His hair falls in front of his eyes. Curls. Shit. Will’s worked it out.

“I know your brother.”  
“Oh?”  
“Nick Bottom.”   
“That’s him.”  
“I was in his troupe in SoHo.”  
“Oh, you’re that Will.”  
“What Will?”  
“Arsehole Will.”  
“That’s what he calls me?” Will asks. Nigel nods. “Charming.” Nigel ignores Will and keeps talking.  
“I was at Priory Lodge when that troupe was on. Never met any of you. Heard lots about you all, though.”  
“You must’ve. We all hated each other after a while.”  
“That much I know.” Nigel mutters before looking off into the middle-distance. There’s another awkward silence. Will kills the cigarette in his mouth, takes out his phone and takes three pictures of Nigel very quickly, with flash. They take him by surprise. “Why’d you do that?” Will shrugs in reply. “You are an arsehole.” Nigel concludes.   
“Maybe I am. But you're still talking to me.”  
“Aye, I am.” 

They stay talking by the tree stump for another hour or so. Will makes a few runs to the house to get more booze. Nigel, it transpires, will only drink vodka and tonic. Will calls him bougie. Nigel flips him off. They talk about uni, about books, about plays. Has Nigel seen the show on at the Young Vic right now? No. Will says he should. Did Nigel do a gap year? No. Did Will? Yep. New York. Nigel listens in wonder to Will talking about broadway. Has Nigel joined the dramatic society at UCL yet? No. Nigel doesn’t act, he says. Will’s not shocked. Nigel has all the vocal projection of a mouse, and the same level of nervousness. He shakes intensely in the autumn night, sipping his drink in an effort to keep warm. He looks awfully out of place, Will realises. What’s Nigel even doing here, he asks. It turns out that Nigel’s best friend Portia has a ‘major crush’ on Antonio but isn’t allowed to go to parties, so Nigel’s here to scope him out. Will says that Nick doesn’t seem to be the type to let his brother go galavanting around at theatre kid raves. Nigel blushes bright red and Will realises that he’s not supposed to be here. It transpires that Nigel’s never actually been to a party before. Will suddenly feels bad for this kid. His first uni party is consisting of sitting next to a tree in the cold with his brother’s nemesis, drinking heavily. That guilt spurs Will to grab Nigel’s hands, pull him onto his feet and then into the kitchen to dance. Someone’s turned on flashing light and everyone is dancing to some sleazy grime track and the cloud of weed is only thickening and Will and Nigel spin and laugh and shout at each other over the music and Will feels like he’s soaring. Nigel lets go of Will’s hands and shuts his eyes and spins around in circles in the purple light and it’s like time slows. The ends of his hair are glowing purple in the light. Will is short of breath. Nigel opens his eyes again. His pupils are dilated. He smiles. A proper smile. Like sunshine through rain clouds. Will decides he wants to see that smile all the time.

They’ve sobered up considerably by three in the morning. They sit on the doorstep of the house, talking about Siegfried Sassoon. Nigel is reciting beautifully from memory, his voice is quiet, but sweet and resonant. He keeps yawning. Will asks if Nigel needs an uber. Nigel says he can’t pay for it. Will waves him off and calls one. Nigel’s too tired to argue. Will taps his number into Nigel’s phone. Nigel barely notices. Will helps him into the uber when it comes: “you gonna call me?”  
“Would y’like that?” Nigel asks. Will shrugs.  
“Might be nice.” He wants to kick himself. Nigel looks a little hurt. Will can’t let himself apologise.  
“I’ll see you around. Give my regards to your brother.”  
“You know I won’t.” Nigel says with that smile again. Will forces himself to smirk in respone. Hides the genuine smile he wants to show. Closes the car door. Watches it drive away.

**Author's Note:**

> the song that's playing off nigel's phone when they meet is superstar by sonic youth in case anyone was interested???
> 
> someone whos a better author than me should write some BCL tbh
> 
> i hate this but on the off chance that you like it hit us up with a comment it'd be loverly.


End file.
